


Isn't this the World?

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: AU, Alternate outcomes of the spear of selene, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gladstone is a deep character maybe, Growing Up, Introspection, being lucky isn't the same thing as being happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 22:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17651072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: In the world of wealth and status, Gladstone Gander was an enigma.





	Isn't this the World?

 

There wasn’t a person alive whose life had been defined by luck as much as Gladstone’s was. 

Good and bad, give and take, it was an uneven balance on a capricious scale. It was his life. 

He never had to look both ways before crossing the street. He never had to worry about illness or injury. Trying to hold down a job became a moot point when he won the lottery every other week. He could travel the world over on a whim. 

His parents died when he was eight years old. 

Give and take. 

All anyone ever saw was the cash prizes and the cruises and the free five-course meals, doors thrown open to him in welcome wherever he went. He knew designers and chefs and dignitaries from Milan to Moscow, and by the time he was twenty-five had amassed an entourage of well-read, cultured peers that joined him in his exploits. 

“Those people are just using you, Gladdy,” Grandma Duck told him during one of his monthly visits to her farm, before she passed away. “They see how lucky you are and they want to take advantage.”

“You worry too much,” Gladstone evaded smoothly, as he served them both tea. 

But Elvira was not one to be evaded. “You should be spending your time with good people, ones who care about you. What’s Daisy up to these days? Oh, or Donald and Della? They’re always going on those fool adventures with your Uncle Scro —”

“They wouldn’t want me around,” he interrupted, looking out at the cornfields through the window. He could feel his grandmother’s somber gaze on him, taking in the tense line of his shoulders and the fingers stiff around his mug. 

Elvira’s sigh was almost imperceptible, and was quickly replaced by a warm smile as she commented on how her azaleas weren’t growing as well as they used to, and if he would be a dear and put that green thumb of his to use.

It’s not that Gladstone had anything against his cousins. He loved Donald, with his quicksilver temper and protective streak a mile long, and he loved daring, darling Della, who’d never met a challenge she didn’t like. They grew up on Grandma’s far, the three of them. 

They’d never liked his luck, like it had wronged them somehow simply by existing. Even when all it had done was help him win the ring toss on the first try or get all the right answers on a test he never studied for, his luck (and him) were met with open distrust and skepticism. They called him spoiled and selfish because he received gifts, because he never had to try, because life was handed to him on a silver platter. 

Gladstone took those words, as told by his family, by Donald, Uncle Scrooge, and even Della, he took them and tucked them close to his heart in an envelope that he would never open, and would one day putrefy and rot and begin to poison him from the inside out. 

He kept the gangrenous envelope  well hidden, and as the years went by and the words grew more poisonous, he smiled more and gardened less and dressed the part of the spoiled child, because why refute what everyone was certain they already knew?

It was always so easy to get under Donald’s skin, even when they were children. Gladstone flaunted his luck then, as much as he was able, because that’s what children did. It was harmless fun, teasing Donald (and Della, to a lesser extent, but her reactions were never as funny as her twin’s). Harmless, until Hortense and Quackmore died, and then it wasn’t.

After that, every act of Gladstone’s luck, no matter how small, was received by Donald like a slap in the face. They were all of them orphans, but Donald and Della’s parents died and left them with nothing. Gladstone still had his luck, and everyone seemed to think that was enough. 

It wasn’t long before he started to think so, too. 

 

Childhood rivalries weren’t so funny anymore when Donald was serving jail time for trying to beat Gladstone tot a twenty dollar bill. When Gladstone was in town for the first time in weeks, and invited his cousins out to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in Duckburg, and they turned him down, wielding “show-off” against him like some sort of damning accusation. 

When Grandma Duck died, it was the first time Gladstone had seen his family in five months (all but Grandma, and sometimes Fethry, who only ever looked for the good in him). He didn’t talk to anyone during the ceremony, not until Elvira had been interred and they all lingered around the grave. 

Gladstone approached them then, dressed in a crisp black suit that the shopkeeper had tearfully insisted he take for free when he told her what it was for, and that he had insisted on paying for. Not even Scrooge was dressed as nicely as he was, but for once Gladstone didn’t mind showing off; he always looked his best for his grandmother, after all. 

“Hey, guys,” he said, without fanfare, as he stopped beside the trio. 

He didn’t know if Uncle Scrooge had ever liked him, always wondered why he allowed someone who didn’t share his blood, or even a semblance of his ideals, to call him uncle. Today, Scrooge’s usual distrust was tempered by grief and so he shook Gladstone’s hand without comment. 

Gladstone hugged Della next, very briefly, and hid his surprise at the slight roundness of her stomach, the pregnancy that Grandma Duck had to be the one to tell him about. 

Donald was last, watching him with an expression that was as guarded as ever, like they hadn’t just buried their grandmother together, like Gladstone didn’t care. 

Gladstone wanted to punch him. He wanted to shake his hand like they were only acquaintances, like they hadn’t played hide and seek in the corn fields around their grandmother’s house. In the end, it was the thought of Grandma Duck’s disappointment in the face of their coldness that had Gladstone stepping forward and hugging Donald. His cousin was stiff in his arms and Gladstone hated it. 

They pulled away after a scant handful of seconds, and it would have to be enough. Gladstone sent his grandmother a small apology, as he stepped back and stuffed his hands in his pockets to hide the shaking. 

“Nice ceremony, huh?” He asked lightly. 

Scrooge scrutinized him over his glasses. “I hear you paid for it.”  _ With money you didn’t earn,  _ goes unsaid. 

“Only the best for her,” Gladstone replied, pasting on his custom smile, effectively erasing any traces of real emotion. 

“It was lovely,” Della said, her honesty like a breath of fresh air. 

Gladstone would make more of an effort to spend time with her, but wherever Della went Donald was sure to follow. She’d never understood how he could be so complacent in life, when she went out of her way to claw and punch and strive for so much more. 

In any event, she deserved a more genuine smile. “Thanks, Dells. But hey, how’re you doing? A little birdy told me you’ve got a couple munchkins kicking around in there.”

Della laughed, and it made Gladstone feel a little lighter. “Three, actually,” she smiled, “You’ll be meeting them in about five months or so.”

“Am I on the shortlist for godfather?” Gladstone quipped, ignoring the way Donald rolled his eyes. “D-Squared can’t hoard them all.”

“We’ll see,” Della hummed. 

Gladstone suspected that was a no. Good. He didn’t imagine he’d be a good role model anyway. 

Donald crossed his arms over his chest, his expression guarded. “What will you be doing with the farm?”

Gladstone stiffened, but only for a moment. 

Of course Donald would be concerned, he reasoned to himself. Grandma Duck’s farm had been safe haven for all of them; it was where their parents had grown up, had lived much of their lives. But it wasn’t Fethry, or Donald or Della who Elvira had left the farm to. She’d left it to Gladstone, to whom the farm had been home as long as she’d been there. 

And now Donald thought to question him, to doubt his intentions toward the only home he’d ever known after his parents’ deaths. Gladstone supposed that Donald expected him to be _ selfish.  _ To bulldoze the farm to the ground and built a nightclub there instead, or dig up the land in search for buried gold. 

Gladstone’s smile was tight, his hands fisted in his coat pockets. “I’m leaving it to Gus, Grandma’s farmhand. He and his husband are starting a family, and they’ll need the extra room. Grams always hated the thought of leaving the place empty when she was gone.”

Donald seemed taken aback, and didn’t have a ready answer. 

Scrooge said what they were all thinking. “Well that’s very...generous of you, Gladstone. I’m sure your grandmother would approve.”

“You know me,” Gladstone replied with a thin smile, not that anyone could tell the difference, “Generous is my middle name.”

 

Ever since Gladstone was a child, he’d been terrified of being selfish. 

His luck already made people despise him, call him spoiled, so he thought that maybe if he _ gave away enough of  _ the gifts he received, they would start to like him. He would make friends, and the yawning emptiness of Grandma Duck’s house could be filled with laughter and games and someone to watch his VHS of Rocketeer with him. 

And it worked, after a fashion.

Some of his peers continued to call him a show-off, and push him into the dirt at recess. Others would flock to him every morning to see what new toy he’d won, and every morning he would give it to them to play with. It was desperate and it was pathetic and it continued for a month, every day ending with the toy broken into pieces by careless, heavy handed children, and discarded. 

After a month, he invited them over to the farmhouse. He talked about wide open fields and the cows he’d befriended, of the front porch that sagged with the age of three generations. 

They asked if there would be new toys. 

Gladstone lied and said, “No.” 

So did they. 

And when Gladstone didn’t bring a new toy the following Monday, they called him selfish. They joined the others in calling him a show-off. 

Gladstone never brought another toy to class again. 

 

Over a decade later, and little had changed. 

Gladstone wasn’t stupid; he acknowledged that on the surface, his entourage resembled those kids he went to school with, the ones who only wanted to be around him because he had the coolest new toys. The only thing was that Gladstone didn’t care anymore. He also didn’t give them anything, at least not directly. 

They got free room and board at the nicest hotels, free meals because they were in his company, and won lower stakes raffle prizes. His luck tended to bleed out onto the people around him, if he was near them for long enough. It was nowhere near the luck on his level, more sporadic and subdued, but for them it was better than nothing. And even better than the spoils was status they got from simply being around him. 

Gladstone knew that if saved his money, cashed in the cruise tickets, the cars, he’d be rich enough to rival Scrooge. But money never mattered to him the same way it mattered to others; he wanted for nothing, and opulence could be fun but he didn’t need it all the time. He didn’t need to be surrounded by reminders of his wealth. 

As a child, he’d given things away to quell his loneliness. As an adult, he’d learned his lesson, knew that the friends money bought weren’t friends at all. Instead, he put his inexhaustible income to use. 

He paid off Fethry’s student loans, and fixed anything on Grandma Duck’s farm that needed fixing, even the sagging front porch. He bought new farm equipment for Grandma and later for Gus, and whenever he visited the farmhouse he brought an entire toy store with him for Gus and his husband Lou’s son, Gregory. 

Gladstone only offered Donald money once, back when he was scraping together funds to buy his houseboat. To say that Donald had refused what he constituted charity would be an understatement. 

In the end, Gladstone would still have so much money left that it left him feeling twitchy and guilty because he didn’t  _ need _ all of it. He didn’t know how his Uncle Scrooge did it _. _ How he could fill a bin with incomprehensible amounts of money _ — _ to  _ swim _ in _ — _ and still have it be nothing more than a drop in the vast ocean that was his net worth. 

So quietly, anonymously, Gladstone funneled his endless resources where they were needed.

In Duckburg, the children’s hospital was able to build a new wing, the homeless shelters became virtual palaces, and the funds for free-lunch programs soared. Wherever Gladstone traveled, as he danced and gambled the night away in Rio de Janeiro and went clubbing in Paris, the local charities would find themselves flush with cash by the following morning. He’d go to a local cafe or restaurant and leave every waiter with a five hundred dollar tip, even if the only thing he ordered was coffee. It felt like he was doing something right for once. Like he had a purpose. 

Some nights the tight, guilty feeling would ease off his chest and Gladstone would be able to sleep. 

Other times, it would feel like he was suffocating under the weight of his luck, despising the person it had made him into, alternatively hated or adored. He kept the genuinely good people in his life at arm’s length, Grandma Duck and Fethry and Donald and Della and Gus and his family, certain that if they stayed around him for long enough they would start to hate him too (part of him knew that Donald was already well on his way, and he couldn’t blame him). 

He didn’t know what he was trying to prove, or to whom, since no one knew what he did with the bulk of his funds but him. Perhaps if he helped enough people, did the opposite of what everyone expected of him, he could drown out the voices that called him selfish and self-aggrandizing. Maybe he’d finally be able to stop believing them. 

 

In the world of wealth and status, Gladstone Gander was an enigma. He knew everybody, but nobody knew him, leaving them free to conjure all manner of backstories and tawdry gossip, seemingly out of thin air. Sometimes he was the heir of a massive fortune, other times a drug kingpin (that one made Grandma laugh whenever he told her), and more often than not, a drunk and a sleaze. 

Gladstone liked good wine (he still preferred the cheap beers Donald used to buy, that they would drink together on the old sagging porch steps) and he liked to have a good time, with men and women, but he was none of those things. Fortunately, it only took meeting him for the people spreading those rumors to stop doing so (what can he say, he was lucky like that). 

The one and only time a rumor had distressed him was when it turned out to be true. A reporter, probably paid by some wealthy socialite, actually did some digging into Gladstone’s past. They would’ve found little of interest, no youthful indiscretions or bad habits, save for a photograph take at Gladstone’s college graduation, which Scrooge had attended. 

Gladstone had never talked about his relation to the richest duck in the world, shaky as it was. His mother was Hortense McDuck’s sister-in-law; hardly anything to hang his hat on, especially compared to Donald and Della, whose bond with Scrooge was bone-deep. 

He knew that if it ever got out that Scrooge was even tangentially related to him, or if, Godfrey forbid,  _ he  _ revealed the fact, his uncle would think him a bigger freeloader than he already did, accusing him of using the Scrooge McDuck name like some sort of all-access pass. 

But the reporter knew what he was doing, and in seemingly no time at all, LUCKIEST GOOSE IN THE WORLD IS NEPHEW OF THE RICHEST DUCK IN THE WORLD was splashed across the society pages, and Gladstone found himself avoiding calls from a very irate uncle. 

For a week, Gladstone not only evaded Scrooge but as well as dozens upon hundreds of news agencies and tabloids thirsting for fresh insight into the world’s most famous adventure capitalist. Many of them (most of them) offered him money, great heaping amounts of it, but Gladstone had never particularly cared about money, and basically all he did now was give it away. Even so, he’d sooner shoot himself in the foot than go behind a family members back like that, nevermind what they thought of him. 

That didn’t mean he was any more eager to confront Scrooge, and get the chewing out of a lifetime. So, like the mature adult he was, he hunkered down and waited for everything to blow over. 

 

Contrary to popular belief, and his admittedly layabout nature, Gladstone  _ was  _ capable of waking up before three in the afternoon. 

He was currently staying in one of his Duckburg properties, a modest townhouse near Silverbeak that the paparazzi didn’t know about. Or at least they hoped they didn’t, as he ventured out before even eight am to hunt down the nearest coffee shop. Well-furnished though his townhouse might be, it lacked in most basic necessities _ — _ coffee being one of them. As well as anything resembling food. 

Gladstone had luxuriant properties the world over, but they stood empty most of the time, lacking for nothing in style but in any personal touches. He just bounced from condo to apartment to villa and back, untethered and adrift. The only place he’d considered home had died with Grandma Duck. 

And so Gladstone was leaving his building of the week scarcely after the sun had risen, already planning where he would travel next to get away from the current chaos. 

Still fearing ambush by an eager paparazzo, Gladstone had forgone many of the usual trappings of his persona. His curly headfeathers had been left untamed, not slicked back for once, and he’d traded one of his upscale three piece suits for his old Mouseton University hoodie and a jacket. He looked so far removed from the suave goose slapped on the magazine covers that he didn’t think his own entourage would recognize him. 

Gladstone locked the front door on his way out, and paused briefly to check on the cleome growing in the front lawn. He’d left strict instructions with his gardeners as to their upkeep, but it looked like they’d slacked in the watering department. The more he inspected them on his stays at the townhouse, the more he considered adding some lavender for a much needed pop of color. 

He resolved to think about it on his walk to the coffee shop, and made his way out onto the sidewalk. 

There was a dark car parked in front of his driveway, and a tall man in an equally dark suit standing beside it. 

“Mr. Gander?” Dark Suit said, fiercely polite, as Gladstone was still trying to process what he was seeing. 

“Uh…” 

Dark Suit wasn’t smiling, and that more than anything clued Gladstone into the fact that this wasn’t his usual luck at work. He wondered if he was being kidnapped. He’d been relatively unimportant until the big reveal, and Scrooge’s enemies numbered into the dozens. If that was the case, then he was sunk; there was no way Scrooge would pay a ransom. 

“Mr. McDuck requests your presence right away, sir,” Dark Suit went on, only exacerbating Gladstone’s panic. 

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, giving Dark Suit what he hoped was an appropriately contrite grin. “I’ve actually got a...a thing I’m doing right now, but tell you what, I’ll get back to Uncle McMoneybags myself, so you don’t have to come all the way — ”

Dark Suit raised a finger for silence, as he reached for something inside his coat. He pulled out a cell phone from some inner pocket, and pressed a single button before raising it to his ear. He waited half a second before snapping out a “yes, sir,” and holding the phone out to Gladstone. 

Apprehension curling in his gut, Gladstone approached Dark Suit like he was holding a venomous snake. 

He lifted it to his ear, painfully slow, as if by drawing out the process he’d spare himself any grief. 

“Go for Gander,” he answered blithely. 

“Gladstone Goostave Gander,” Scrooge McDuck bit out, so livid his tone was civil, “If you don’t get in the car in the next ten seconds, I will give the press the addresses of every one of your Duckburg properties.” 

“No need for threats, Uncle McDunkle,” Gladstone chuckled, perfectly composed even as his heart beat double time in his chest. “Am I safe to assume this isn’t a social call?”

Scrooge hung up on him, and Gladstone didn’t bother listening to more than a second of dial tone before he handed the phone back to Dark Suit. 

“Ready when you are, Jeeves,” Gladstone said, already feeling exhausted. 

Dark Suit opened the car door for him.

Gladstone took a moment to eye the ominously gaping interior, before stepping inside. 

All around, he would have preferred a kidnapping. 

 

Visiting McDuck Manor never failed to dredge up feelings of inadequacy in Gladstone. 

It loomed over Duckburg from the highest point possible, surpassing even skyscrapers from its position of power atop Killmotor Hill. Scrooge McDuck was like a king in his castle, every tapestry and arching beam practically bleeding a history of adventure and sacrifice.

Scrooge McDuck had built much of the manor himself, well over a century ago, and it showed. Every brick and corner seemed to pass judgement, weighing the worth of those who dared enter. Every portrait glared, or offered a challenge, or looked on in pride upon the empire he’d built from a dime.

Mrs. Beakley greeted Gladstone at the door, after he grudgingly climbed the steps under the watchful eye of his driver. He just felt lucky he hadn’t been frogmarched to the doorstep. 

His uncle’s housekeeper looked down at him with a quirk of her brow that spoke of amusement, and if it weren’t for Gladstone’s luck, his imminent demise as well. All the same, it was an alarming expression to see on Beakley’s face, considering that in the half decade since he’d met her, he’d only seen her smile twice. 

“Good morning, Gladstone,” she said serenely, stepping aside to allow him entrance. 

“Good to see ya, Mrs. B,” Gladstone replied dryly, fighting the urge to tug on his faded hoodie. Self-consciousness gnawed at the back of his mind, and he was pointedly aware of his state of undress compared to his usual standards. He was supposed to be getting  _ coffee, _ not meeting his uncle for a duel. He wanted his _ suit,  _ damn it, he wanted his pomade. He hadn’t even showered yet, for Godfrey’s sake. 

Beakley’s keen gaze tended catch more than she let on, and as inscrutable as her expression was today, he couldn’t imagine what she saw on his own face. 

“Mr. McDuck is in his study,” she said after a beat. “He’ll be expecting you.”

She made to head in the opposite direction, apparently content to leave Gladstone to his own devices. 

In an attempt to shake off his nerves, Gladstone called after her. “What, you’re not gonna follow me and make sure I don’t steal the good silver?”

Beakley turned and pinned him with a look, as one would pin a bug under glass. “If you so much as touch the good silver, I’ll know.” She wielded a smile like a weapon, disarming him in its sharpness.

Gladstone quickly looked away, stuffed his hands in his pockets and made for the main staircase. “Uh,” he cleared his throat, “the study, you said?”

“Yes, sir,” Beakley replied easily, sparing him his dignity by not commenting on how he practically fled the foyer with his tail tucked between his legs. 

As if he ever needed the reminder that his uncle’s housekeeper wasn’t to be trifled with. 

 

The walk to Scrooge’s study wasn’t particularly far, but it still took Gladstone twice as long to get there on account of him dragging his feet. When he eventually reached the door, plain and nondescript as any other, he loathed how he couldn’t shake the feeling of being sent to the principal’s office. 

Taking a breath, Gladstone knocked once before swinging the door open and swanning in with his usual degree of carelessness. “Hey, Uncle McBillions, what’s shakin’?”

Scrooge looked up from the probably Very Important Documents he was reading at his desk, an exasperated cut to his beak. “Good morning, Gladstone. You look...different.”

Gladstone rolled his eyes with good humor that was only  _ mostly  _ faked. “Yeah, it’s my ‘I was ambushed outside my house at 7am’ look. Real chic.”

His uncle looked unimpressed, as ever, as he carefully compiled the folders on his desk. “You’ve been avoiding my calls,” he said simply, and Gladstone fought the urge to duck his head like a disobedient child. He set the folders in an organized stack at his side. “I had to take drastic action.”

“Well, here I am,” Gladstone replied, spreading his hands. If his cavalier veneer slipped ever so slightly, he blamed it on the kidnapping and his lack of armor. He always dueled better in a suit. 

“Aye,” Scrooge supplied, and little else. He steepled his fingers, elbows propped up on his desk, and seemed content to stare Gladstone down. 

But Gladstone didn’t come all the way here to only for Scrooge McDuck to give him the silent treatment. He withstood maybe up to thirty seconds, if one was being generous, before he cracked. 

“I didn’t tell Danny Cassowary you were my uncle,” Gladstone bit out as calmly as he could manage. He couldn’t fight his hunching shoulders, and stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets to hide how they curled into fists. 

Scrooge blinked, the spell of stillness apparently broken as he looked back at Gladstone with a perplexed tilt of the head. “What?”

“I wasn’t the one who told him,” Gladstone insisted, keeping his tone level. “He did some digging on his own, asked a couple different people, I think. I just…” he shook his head, glancing down at the ground. “I didn’t want you thinking I was...I don’t know, taking advantage, or trying to cash in on something neither of us can control.”

When Gladstone forced his gaze upward, he saw that Scrooge looked taken aback. It wasn’t an expression he could ever recall having seen on his uncle, and it left him faltering for a moment on how to proceed. 

“Thank you, for telling me, Gladstone,” Scrooge said, a little haltingly. He cleared his throat, as if to clear away the pesky emotion in his voice. “But, ah, that’s not why I called you here.” 

_ That  _ came as a surprise to Gladstone. “It-it’s not?” he asked, inanely. 

Scrooge rolled his eyes now, his cool expression warming with a sardonic smile. “Gladstone, do you know how bloody often those two-faced tabloids are claiming they’ve found proof that I have an illegitimate child? Confirming the existence of an  _ actual  _ family member is hardly a blow to my social standing.”

Gladstone tried not to blink too rapidly as shock settled in, more than aware of how obvious he was being in trying to collect himself. He blamed it on the earliness of the day, his lack of a suit, the anxiety of the past week, you name it. 

His uncle’s smile began to twist in amusement. “Did they offer you money to do interviews?”

“Y-yeah?”

Scrooged tsked. “Should’ve taken it, laddie, if they were so foolish as to throw it away. Would’ve been amusing to watch, if nothing else.”

Gladstone pinched the space between his eyes with a brief but exasperated sigh. “Why _ a _ m I here, Scrooge?”

“Well—”

The door opened behind Gladstone, startling him into straightening and dropping his hand.

Della poked her head through the gap. “Hey, Uncle Scrooge, Mrs. Beakley told me that Gladstone was— _ Gladstone!” _

“The one and only,” Gladstone replied cheekily. He couldn’t help but stiffen slightly when she dove forward, engulfing him in a tight hug. “Whoa! Missed you too, cuz. What’s up?”

Della pulled away, face screwed up quizzically. “Didn’t...Uncle Scrooge didn’t tell you?”

Gladstone raised an eyebrow in turn, more confused by the minute. “Tell me what?”

“Seriously, Uncle Scrooge?” Della demanded, whirling to face Scrooge. 

Scrooge threw up his hands, whether in defense or placation could be up for debate. “I was getting there!”

“Dells,  _ what—” _ Gladstone started to say, but she silenced him with a gentle hand on his arm. 

“Just follow me, Curly.”

With a put upon sigh, Gladstone did just that. 

 

Della lead him through a series of rooms he’d never been to before, which considering the sheer size of the mansion wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. 

“We would’ve let you know sooner, but  _ someone  _ has been avoiding our calls for the last week,” Della was saying, fixing Gladstone with a pointed look as they stopped before another closed door. 

Gladstone, unsure of whether he should be excited or concerned, smiled winningly. “Just wanted some peace and quiet, Dellster, what with the press hounding me 24/7. Why, what did you want to tell me?”

Della smiled wryly, twisting the doorknob behind her. “I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”

She pushed the door open, revealing another unfamiliar room. As Gladstone followed her inside, he did a slow turn to take in the whole of it.

There was a fireplace on one side, sitting dark and unlit. Above it was an astonishing portrait of Donald, Della, and Scrooge, standing over Della’s eggs with their arms around each other. The room was wallpapered a soft blue, and the wide glass windows let in enough light to make them resemble the color of the sky. 

“So what exactly did you want to show me?” Gladstone asked, as he came full circle, only to freeze in place at the sight of the one thing he hadn’t noticed. 

Framed by a set of drawers and a dresser was a large crib, which Della had immediately made a beeline for. She looked back at him, still standing stock-still halfway across the room, and laughed. 

“Don’t you want to meet your nephews?”

Gladstone chuckled weakly, crossing the distance in a few slow, short strides. “Wouldn’t ‘cousins’ technically be more accurate?”

Della rolled her eyes. “Gladstone, you’re older than  _ I _ am. If you want them calling you ‘cousin,’ be my guest.”

“You call me old?” he snarked back, but his sentence trailed off as he came to stand over the crib. 

Three baby ducklings turned to look at him, eyes too big in their small faces. They were each dressed in bright, disparate colors: red, blue, and green respectively. 

Gladstone’s breath left him in a rush, like he’d just been dealt a blow to the solar plexus. 

“Dells…” he muttered, and didn’t know what else to say. 

Della reached down, caressing the cheek or head feathers of each ducklings in turn. “Meet Hubert, Dewford, and Llewellyn Duck.” At Gladstone’s look, she went on with a smile, “Or Huey, Dewey, and Louie for short.”

He chuckled, a mad, bubbly feeling rising in his chest like freshly uncorked champagne. “Wouldja just look at these little gremlins. They’re adorable! You sure they’re yours, cuz?”

She elbowed him for that, gasping in mock affront. 

Gladstone rubbed his arm where she’d hit him, which would surely bruise, laughing and bizarrely at ease. 

“You want to hold one of them?” she asked, a mischievous look on her face that was outweighed by one of sincerity.

Uncertainty engulfed him,  he fell silent with a hesitance uncharacteristic of him. “Uh, sure. But, uh...what if I drop him?”

Della snorted, plucking the duckling in green from the crib with expert motions. “With your luck, he’ll bounce.” She started carefully passing him to Gladstone, her smile encouraging. “Now, this is Louie. And don’t worry, I’ll be right here the whole time.”

Gladstone took the duckling in his arms with movements surer than he felt. He hadn't held a kid like this since Gregory, and he’d been almost three at the time. And before that, when he was five years old and Aunt Lulubelle had helped him settle an infant Fethry in his arms. 

The duckling in green blinked sleepily, hardly perturbed at being moved. He looked up at Gladstone though half-lidded eyes, before curling closer to his chest. 

Gladstone swallowed tightly, cradling Louie even closer still. He glanced up to see Della skillfully lift her other two children in her arms. “When did they hatch?”

“Just a little over a week ago,” Della replied, her smile a touch rueful. 

Gladstone closed his eyes with a groan. He felt the urge to hit himself over the head. “That’s why Scrooge was calling me nonstop.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she grinned. 

Gladstone just shook his head again, not willing to explain that the only reason he thought their uncle would try to get in contact with him was to reprimand him. 

“We got it on video,” Della said offhandedly. “If you wanted to see what you missed.”

“Why, did anything interesting happen?”

Della couldn’t smack him again with her two sons in her arms, but it was obvious that she wanted to. “If by  _ interesting  _ you mean little Louie here giving his mom and uncles a heart attack when he took forty minutes longer than his brothers to hatch.”

“No kidding!” Gladstone looked back down at the sleeping duckling in his arms with newfound appreciation. “Sleeping in to avoid responsibilities. A kid after my own heart.”

He didn’t look up, but he could imagine that Della was rolling her eyes. 

The door on the other side of the room opened, Donald pushing his way through while balancing a tray carrying three baby bottles full of formula and two mugs filled with something steaming. 

“Hey, Della, I wasn’t sure if you wanted coffee but Mrs. B had a pot going _ — _ ” Donald looked up, noticing Gladstone for the first time. “Oh.  _ You’re  _ here.”

Gladstone almost expected to hear more vitriol in his cousin’s voice in response to his invasion into their happy little family. All the same, it was a small, if not quite subtle, reminder that he didn’t belong in their world. A world where heroes earned their titles, and adventure was present in the very marrow of their bones. Almost on instinct, the feeling of not-belonging that the mansion never failed to invoke threatened to rise in him once more, stinging the back of his throat and making the warmth of the duckling in his arms feel more like a brand.

But then Gladstone had to do a double-take because Donald was  _ smiling, _ small and a little self-deprecating, as he held out one of the baby bottles. 

“Took you long enough,” Donald said, brimming with all the honesty Gladstone had always admired and envied. 

He reached out to take the bottle. “Thought it was rude to show up without an invitation,” he replied, almost too casually. 

“You’re _ family,” _ Della scoffed, like that explained everything. “You don’t need an invitation.”

The tense, poisonous knot Gladstone carried around within him everywhere he went loosened then, just a little, enough for him to breathe through his carefully constructed facade. The weight of the duckling in his arms became a comforting burden.  

“I’ll remember that,” he said, and he meant it. 

Gladstone turned his attention back to Louie, as Donald went to take the one in red from Della so they could both feed one of them. 

Louie had awoken at some point during Donald’s entrance, and he watched Gladstone with somber curiosity. 

“Hey, kiddo,” Gladstone murmured, hesitating only a moment before he brought the bottle of formula up to the duckling’s beak. He was reminded, rather unhelpfully, that the closest he’d ever come to feeding a baby was helping Grandma Duck bottle feed their calves when he was fifteen years old.

But to his luck, Louie accepted the bottle without hassle, even going so far as to try to grab the bottle and hold it in place as best he could with his tiny hands. 

Gladstone looked up at the sound of Della’s soft laughter. 

To feed Dewey, she’d taken a seat in a large plush armchair positioned under one of the wide windows, the sunlight illuminating her from behind in a hazy glow, as if something in a dream. 

He didn’t know it then, but the memory of her in that moment, frozen in sunlight, every inch the daring adventurer as much as the loving mother, would stay with him for years to come. As he doubted himself, questioned whether he was doing what she would’ve wanted, he would remember how she offered to let him hold her child, and _don’t worry, I’ll be right here the whole time._ He’d remember Donald, all iron and steel, the baby bottle in his hand an olive branch, _t_ _ook you long enough,_ because Gladstone had always been his own worst enemy. 

In the present, Gladstone asked, “What’s so funny?” 

“Nothing,” Della said, doing nothing to disguise the amused look she shared with Donald that refuted her statement. “It’s just...there’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

“I draw the line at babysitting,” Gladstone warned jovially. He briefly checked on Louie, who continued to drink contentedly from his bottle.

“That’s not it,” Della assured him around a grin. “I was wondering if you’d like to be Louie’s godfather.”

Over the rushing in his ears, Gladstone recalled a joke made in a cemetery on a sunny day. 

“I was just joking,” he managed. 

“Well I’m not,” Della repled. 

“I’d be a bad godfather.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she grinned. 

“I’m serious!” And he was, terrifying as it was to realize. “I’d let him eat junk food. And stay up late. And teach him there’s no value in hard work.”

“They’ve got a couple years to go until junk food will be an issue,” Donald commented serenely, feeding Huey his own bottle of formula, and oh he was  _ enjoying  _ this, seeing Gladstone so utterly out of his element. 

“Gladstone, we’re not going to force you to accept,” Della cut in succinctly. “You’ll be the boys’ uncle, no matter what. If you need some time to think it —”

“Nah,” Gladstone interrupted, “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

Donald guffawed, while his twin sat blinking for a long moment. 

“You’re sure?” she asked quizzically. 

Gladstone nodded, outwardly calm, even as his insides writhed, churning under the weight of the very real responsibility he was accepting, despite how they couched it in humor. 

Della beamed. “I’m glad. ‘Cause we actually do need you to babysit.”

“Oh, come on!” Gladstone cried, “I just set the ground rules! And besides, I thought Double D over here had dibs on babysitting duties for life?”

“I’m going with her,” Donald said, rolling his eyes. 

“Another adventure?” Gladstone asked wryly. “If it’s another lost city, just promise me you won’t be gone a week. I don’t know if I could last longer than two days.”

“It’ll be a good bonding experience for you and the babies, you big baby,” Della retorted winningly. “Besides, we’ll only be gone for a few hours.”

“Uh huh. Where are you going again?”

Della grinned, daring and bright, and of all the moments Gladstone remembered, this was the one he wished he could forget. 

“Somewhere out of this world.”  

  
  
  


Gladstone’s luck had never brought him any real joy, and Grandma Duck always knew it. 

Her daughter and son-in-law newly dead, and her eight-year-old grandson dumped on her doorstep, she’d rolled up her sleeves and set to raising him like it was nobody's’ business. 

On the farm, his luck hadn’t really seemed to matter. Grandma would teach him how to feed the chickens and clean their coop, and if he accidentally dropped an egg and found a diamond ring inside of it, she would only get misty-eyed and say, “You remind me so much of your mother.”

She would show Gladstone around her ornate garden, teach him the names of flowers, which vegetables to plant which season, and how to care for them. The wisteria climbing up the side of the farmhouse became a friend, the azaleas by the sagging porch a stubborn challenger, and the pumpkins he grew won awards. 

But the rest of the world didn’t stop at the farmhouse gate, and for the rest of the world, Gladstone’s luck  _ mattered.  _

Being from a farming community, living and one day dying in the house her father had built, Grandma Duck wanted that same peace and comradery for Gladstone that she’d grown up with. That his mother had grown up with. She didn’t push, because Elvira was ever about her family being free to make their own choices, but Gladstone knew that she wanted him to get more out of life than the endless parade of meaningless good fortune and simpering sycophants could provide. They used to joke, Elvira more serious with every passing year, that he should open a nursery.  

Gladstone wasn’t his grandmother. He didn’t have her conviction or her goodness and he couldn’t stand the thought of living on a farm after two decades of penthouses and first-class tickets.  But with his cousins newly dead, or near enough, and three infants dumped on his doorstep, Gladstone rolled up his sleeves and set to raising them like it was nobody's’ business. 

He even opened up that nursery. 

 


End file.
